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Is your city's subway system as bad as mine? (1 Viewer)

Scoresman

Scoresman

Footballguy
I live in the SF Bay Area and our subway is called BART.  It is simply and utterly awful.  Riding this system feels like you enter a land where all of the normal rules, laws, and standards of living in a civilized society are non-existent. 

In fact I had heard stories about how bad the NYC subway is, but when I visited there earlier this year and took the subway extensively, I was amazed at how much better it is than ours.

ALL of these things happened this week and it's only Wednesday.

Man with 2 chainsaws arrested at a station.

Man leaving pools of his own of blood all over the place closes a station

Man gets his leg stuck between the train and the platform, causing station closure.

All seasoned BART riders know to check their seats for needles, vomit, urine or feces.  Not only does the air conditioning not work a lot of the time in the train cars, but the air system is often stuck on heat, and apparently they said this is too expensive to fix.  This is all on top of late trains, equipment problems, etc.  The other day I was stuck in the underwater tube linking SF to Oakland for over 20 minutes in a train car packed like sardines.  God forbid an earthquake happens.  

Share stories of how horrible your public transit is.  

 
Here in Springfield VT our Subway system is horrible. Takes me up to half an hour to get my Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki during rush hour....

 
Portland's Light Rail is pretty good, though it can get sketchy in parts, especially now in downtown where the homeless population has exploded.  One thing that really sucks is the frequency of stops downtown.  The train stops like 12 times in a downtown area that isn't that big to begin with.  It's senseless and slows things down. 

Generally speaking, though, it's a nice alternative for getting around.  Traffic here is abysmal; too many people have moved here absent any sort of highway expansion, so the small little highways are constantly clogged, like Otis' toilet after brunch.  So it's nice to be able to actually move, even if you have to share a crowded train car with some of Portland's very finest meth heads, anti-bathers and freak show mutants.  

There's also a train train that runs north and south and I take it quite a bit.  That's really convenient for me as I can walk to the transit center from my house (1 mile), take the 17 minute ride south and walk 1.5 miles to my office.  Very efficient, always on time, clean enough.  

 
No Subway system in  Chico.

Haven't ridden BART in many years, it was really nice in the first few years.

And I am glad you called it BART not the BART. Effen tourists

 
as bad as NYC is- overcrowded, "signal problems", shutting down whole neighborhoods on weekends and evenings... I'm still always amazed that it runs as well as it does. I mean, not well compared to other cities I've been to... but definitely better than bart. it's about the comprehensiveness- being able to get just about anywhere, if you give yourself enough time. that said- if I can avoid it via walking or citibike, I always do.

 
trogg78 said:
We are fortunate to have the largest abandoned subway system in the US.

Cincinnati Subway
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In 2008 it was estimated that it would cost $2.6 million to simply keep maintaining the tunnels, $19 million to fill the tunnels with dirt, and $100.5 million to revive the tunnels for modern subway use.[6] Relocating the 52-inch (1.3 m) water main would cost $14 million.[8] As of August 2016, the abandoned tunnel is used to carry the relocated water main and some optical fiber cables.[6]

$100 mil seems cheap

 
I can’t imagine there is anything worse than BART.  It’s packed with trains/people and designed without any way around the stations. Each major route is just two tracks for 60+ min in each direction.  Any delay anywhere on the line or at a station and the whole thing shuts down.  Just awful.

 
Atlanta has MARTA - it’s not that bad on the few times I ride it but it’s just completely inconvenient - limited stops around the city and I wouldn’t even try and use the MARTA buses.  For what I use it for it’s fine and almost always clean and not crowded.  

 
Wow, now I'm depressed.  I thought this thread would be full of people tripping over themselves arguing that their subways were the worst, but it seems pretty clear we really do have the worst out here.  

 
I think the fundamental issue with regional mass transportation systems like BART, MARTA, Washington Metro, etc. is suburban sprawl that surrounds American cities.  There's no way to build a redundant transit grid over such a large area.  The systems are comprised of single track spurs radiating from the urban center that are prone to congestion during peak hours and  can collapse when a single train breaks down.  In retrospect, planners might have been better off investing in traditional rail infrastructure rather than high-profile, high-cost dedicated systems.  However, that's much easier if existing rail rights-of-way are near suburban population centers.

 
Eephus said:
I think the fundamental issue with regional mass transportation systems like BART, MARTA, Washington Metro, etc. is suburban sprawl that surrounds American cities.  There's no way to build a redundant transit grid over such a large area.  The systems are comprised of single track spurs radiating from the urban center that are prone to congestion during peak hours and  can collapse when a single train breaks down.  In retrospect, planners might have been better off investing in traditional rail infrastructure rather than high-profile, high-cost dedicated systems.  However, that's much easier if existing rail rights-of-way are near suburban population centers.
Click to expand...
Yeah but this wont help with the problem of sitting in vomit or avoiding crazy people with chainsaws.  

At least they got rid of the cloth seats.  ?

 
Football Jones said:
Same same.

I'm in Oklahoma.

Kinda glad I don't have to deal with that mess.
Click to expand...
I wish we had a better rail system.

I took a trip over the weekend. Left out of Burbank airport. I live in Pasadena. Its a straight shot on the 134/5 freeways. But there's always traffic, and then you have to do the long term parking thing. Perfect candidate for trip by rail. But, if I wanted to do that, I'd have to board a train in Pasadena, go in to downtown Los Angeles to change trains and then go all the way back up to Burbank. There's no semi-direct route. 

 
Epic Problem said:
Considering I don't even have a city, there's really no reason for me to have a subway system  
Click to expand...
now imagine that you still did have a subway how fn cool would that be ridin around like you owned the place all day take that to the bank brohan 

 
SWC said:
now imagine that you still did have a subway how fn cool would that be ridin around like you owned the place all day take that to the bank brohan 
Click to expand...
can I wear a railroad engineer's hat and yell "Woo Woo" out the window?

 
Scoresman said:
Yeah but this wont help with the problem of sitting in vomit or avoiding crazy people with chainsaws.  

At least they got rid of the cloth seats.  ?
Click to expand...
I only ride BART to the Coliseum or SFO a few times a year.  It generally runs on schedule.  The trains have their share of trash, especially late in the day but I've managed to avoid chainsaw massacres so far.

Familiarity breeds contempt so it's understandable that people who rely on a mass transit system on a day-in/day-out basis will probably be more critical of it than someone riding the trains while on a short visit.

 
Eephus said:
SWC said:
now imagine that you still did have a subway how fn cool would that be ridin around like you owned the place all day take that to the bank brohan 
Click to expand...
can I wear a railroad engineer's hat and yell "Woo Woo" out the window?
Click to expand...
brohan you are a brohan amongst brohans and the king of the music threads so in swcs world you can do any damned thing you want hells yeah take that to the bank brochacho

 
I don't take Philly Subway often (SEPTA) but its been pretty decent. Relatively clean. Lots of police around. The stations are well lit and it's fairly easy to navigate from one rail to the next. It also travels well out into the suburbs in multiple directions.

 
Insein said:
I don't take Philly Subway often (SEPTA) but its been pretty decent. Relatively clean. Lots of police around. The stations are well lit and it's fairly easy to navigate from one rail to the next. It also travels well out into the suburbs in multiple directions.
Click to expand...
yeah Philly public transportation, specifically the subway is probably above average. You would want to avoid when school lets out, but outside of that, setup well

 
BART is okay when it's not too crowded, which is never during commute hours, at which point it completely sucks.  

I think the worst thing about BART is the coverage, there aren't a lot of stations.  If you happen to live near BART, it serves its purpose, when its not overcrowded and running on time of course.

 
Chicago isn't too bad. A nice combination of city subway/bus mass transit that also has light rail for commuters from the 'burbs. Stations need a good cleaning but it's mostly reliable. The outdoor tracks and other infrastructure is falling apart due to age but whatever.

 
I didn't have a problem with BART when I was there. I took is from (near) Livermore to Berkeley. I think I had to change trains and I remember it being confusing which line was which but as far as undesirables it wasn't a problem at all.

 
BART also infamously had large groups of teens (40-60) running onto the trains and attacking passengers and robbbibg them.  There were numerous instances of this, but BART intentionally withheld the information from the public and refused to disclose the surveillance video so that the public wouldn't reach racial stereotypes.  Nice subway system there.

BART 1

BART 2

 
Scoresman said:
I live in the SF Bay Area and our subway is called BART.  It is simply and utterly awful.  Riding this system feels like you enter a land where all of the normal rules, laws, and standards of living in a civilized society are non-existent. 

In fact I had heard stories about how bad the NYC subway is, but when I visited there earlier this year and took the subway extensively, I was amazed at how much better it is than ours.

ALL of these things happened this week and it's only Wednesday.

Man with 2 chainsaws arrested at a station.

Man leaving pools of his own of blood all over the place closes a station

Man gets his leg stuck between the train and the platform, causing station closure.

All seasoned BART riders know to check their seats for needles, vomit, urine or feces.  Not only does the air conditioning not work a lot of the time in the train cars, but the air system is often stuck on heat, and apparently they said this is too expensive to fix.  This is all on top of late trains, equipment problems, etc.  The other day I was stuck in the underwater tube linking SF to Oakland for over 20 minutes in a train car packed like sardines.  God forbid an earthquake happens.  

Share stories of how horrible your public transit is.  
Click to expand...
Philly has SEPTA That connects to New Jersey's PATCO. The Train system is nice but the el is a different story. SEPTA has installed new buses and we finally got rid of our tokens for key passes (Some of the token riders weren't happy with it). I was on a Car for the el where a kid and another guy got into an argument over the 76ers/Bulls game like 6 years ago this Dec it was on 12/12/12 where a kid pulled a gun and shot into the train car. Bullet hit a guys leg. Lucky it hit him as some 5 yr old was standing near the other side of the door and bullet could've defected and hit her. My buddy and I had just moved to seats from that area not 2 mins before that. We've had people with needles and some guy sleeping on the train. My co worker who rides it home has a ton of stories including some scumbag fondling himself while looking at her. Overall the system could be better but there's far worse. For me for the most part it can take me to point A to point b and to get to the stadium area where all 4 major sports teams play from the suburbs is fairly easy unlike other cities. 

 
El Floppo said:
as bad as NYC is- overcrowded, "signal problems", shutting down whole neighborhoods on weekends and evenings... I'm still always amazed that it runs as well as it does. I mean, not well compared to other cities I've been to... but definitely better than bart. it's about the comprehensiveness- being able to get just about anywhere, if you give yourself enough time. that said- if I can avoid it via walking or citibike, I always do.
Click to expand...
I've done Metro before its not the worst but I'm not sure if I lived there I could remember all the different routes and all Take A and transfer to C and get on 1 to get to D? 

 
modogg said:
yeah Philly public transportation, specifically the subway is probably above average. You would want to avoid when school lets out, but outside of that, setup well
Click to expand...
And during Eagles games if you've never ridden SEPTA before just follow the crowd of green clothes. Whenever I hear people about taking SEPTA for the first time and they ask about getting lost on the way there I told them it's impossible just follow the sea of green. And if you need to someone is always in the mood to help you. 

 
Al O'Pecia said:
BART also infamously had large groups of teens (40-60) running onto the trains and attacking passengers and robbbibg them.  There were numerous instances of this, but BART intentionally withheld the information from the public and refused to disclose the surveillance video so that the public wouldn't reach racial stereotypes.  Nice subway system there.

BART 1

BART 2
Click to expand...
I love how it says one of the Stops was the Coliseum stop. Gee no #### that would've been one of my first guesses of being hit. I remember when I had friends of mine go to LA last year for Eagles/Rams they were told how bad a lot of that area. 

 
Jacksonville has a Monorail that crosses the river but doesn't really go anywhere. So few people were riding it, they finally made it free.

It doesn't go to the stadium area. It doesn't connect with one of the growing downtown residential neighbirhoods (Riverside). If you're coming in from the suburbs, you literally exit I95 one exit sooner if you want to use it. 

 
Insein said:
I don't take Philly Subway often (SEPTA) but its been pretty decent. Relatively clean. Lots of police around. The stations are well lit and it's fairly easy to navigate from one rail to the next. It also travels well out into the suburbs in multiple directions.
Click to expand...
SEPTA? 

Wow - what a horrible acronym (septic)

 
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